Save Article

Sayuki, Geisha With a Difference

Japan’s first foreign Geisha, Sayuki, kneels in front of an ikebana flower arrangement in white makeup, wig and full Geisha garb

With naturally russet brown hair and blue eyes, Dr. Fiona Graham is not your average geisha, should such a thing exist. In fact, Sayuki, to use the name she goes by, meaning “Transparent Happiness” is anything but typical.

As the first foreigner to have been officially accepted into the geisha world, what originally began as an anthropological study for the Oxford scholar became a year of intense training in traditional Japanese arts, leading to securing official recognition and making her professional geisha debut in December 2007. And the training can be arduous: many young Japanese novices falling by the wayside well before reaching the professional ranks.

The world of the geisha has remained broadly impenetrable to foreigners, generating a slew of misconceptions, chief among which is that their role is one premised on sex. Instead, geisha are paid entertainers of traditional Japanese arts and music. Training throughout their lives, a number of more senior geisha have even been classified as “living national treasures”, the highest status an artist can attain in Japan.

Renowned also for their wit and conversational skills, they have for centuries been called out to entertain at tea houses, events and parties: Sayuki’s role is no different, made possible by her fluent Japanese. The fact that most of her clients are Japanese is testimony to this — geisha first, foreigner second. However unlike many geisha who will not meet prospective clients without a third party introduction, tech-savvy Sayuki does make some concessions to Western-style innovation: she has a Twitter account, where she ‘follows’ CBS News and singer Justin Timberlake, among others, and is also happy to be contacted directly via her website and booked for banquets.

Sayuki takes her role seriously. “Going into a banquet is going on-stage -– you’re performing a role and your art,” she says. “I often get emails from girls telling me they want to become a geisha. Can you imagine writing to someone to say you want to be a ballet dancer? Just because you put on a tutu doesn’t mean you can dance. Geisha are the same, we are artists.”

And while academia and the old Tokyo geisha district of Asakusa, where Sayuki plies her trade, may be worlds apart, the lengthy hours of study put in before her geisha ‘mother’- Yukiko, or chief trainer, allowed Sayuki to debut is a common thread.

From learning to play traditional instruments like the yokobue flute and shamisen, to learning about flora and fauna so that a kimono adorned with seasonal flowers can be correctly picked, the studies are demanding. Meantime, there has been an unlikely fusion between Sayuki’s own academic history — her doctorate is in social anthropology — and geisha career over the last year: she has been lecturing at Keio University on geisha and traditional Japanese arts.

With an entrepreneurial flair also in keeping with geisha, who have remained independent and successful businesswomen through history in a traditionally male-dominated society, Sayuki is also a published author of several business books. And she’s now turning her attention to seeking out commercial sponsorship. In the 1920s, when there were around 80,000 geisha in Japan (the number has now fallen to around 2,000), they were often the faces for consumer products like Shiseido Co.’s cosmetics or Asahi Breweries Ltd.’s beer. Sayuki is keen to revive this tradition, with the aim of funding the training of new geisha, otherwise prohibitively expensive for many.

With so many projects in train, despite frustrations that occasionally arise out of being immersed in such a traditional hierarchy, Sayuki says has no immediate plans to leave “the flower and willow world” of Geisha. “Forever is a long time,” she says, “but I haven’t yet set an end point.”